Prequel Trilogy Commentaries » Chapter 34

Chapter 34 – The Showdown

December 14th, 2007

INT: GEONOSIS, SECRET HANGAR – LATE DAY

Count Dooku increases the tempo of his attack. Obi-Wan is pushed to the limit to defend himself. Dooku presses. The two lock sabers. Obi-Wan strains to push Dooku’s blade away. Dooku grins and flashes his blade, quickly wounding Obi-Wan in the shoulder, then the thigh. Obi-Wan cries out and falls. His lightsaber goes skittering across the floor.

And Obi gets taken out of the fight early. Might become a habit.

Count Dooku waves his lightsaber with a flourish. Anakin sees what he is about to do. Dooku raises his lightsaber for the final blow. Obi-Wan looks up at him helplessly. Anakin leaps across the room with saber activated. Dooku’s lightsaber flashes down and CLASHES against Anakin’s lightsaber. Dooku and Anakin stare eye to eye.

COUNT DOOKU: Brave of you, boy. But I would have thought you had learned your lesson.

Obi-Wan stretches his hand out toward his lightsaber. It returns to his grasp.

ANAKIN: I am a slow learner.

I had a snarky remark for this, but Anakin beat me to it and dissed his own self.

Anakin backs off.

OBI-WAN: Anakin!

Obi-Wan tosses his lightsaber to Anakin. With two lightsabers, Anakin attacks. Count Dooku parries and ripostes. It’s no contest. Anakin is driven back. Dooku slices one lightsaber in half. Anakin retreats, slicing a power cable on the floor and plunging part of the chamber in darkness. Nothing can be seen except the glowing blades and their light as they illuminate the combatants’ faces. They mirror each other’s moves as the battle brings them back into the light.

Now, this would have been interesting if Anakin had kept the second saber longer. The cuts with the blades lighting up their faces and the tight focus makes the battle feel claustrophobic. Anakin starting to mirror Dooku’s moves was a good touch, albeit short. Maybe I’m saying the whole battle is too short, huh?

Finally, Count Dooku, in one flashing move, sends Anakin’s arm, cut off at the elbow, flying, still gripping his lightsaber. He uses the Force to push Anakin across the room. He comes to rest against Obi-Wan, unconscious. Dooku heaves a hard breath and shuts down his lightsaber.

Flashing move? The boy practically stuck his arm out and said, “Here ya go! Take it off!”

He took it off.

He hears footsteps approaching and turns at the sound. Shuffling into the chamber, grunting with every step, is the diminutive figure of Yoda.

COUNT DOOKU: Master Yoda.

Yoda stops, resting his hands on top of his walking stick.

YODA: Count Dooku.

COUNT DOOKU: You have interfered with our affairs for the last time.

Jedi trash talking needed a lot of work in the PT.

Count Dooku raises his hand and pulls pieces of machinery off the walls and hurls them at the tiny figure of the Jedi Master. Yoda drops his stick and deflects the machinery. Count Dooku then causes great boulders in the ceiling above Yoda to fall, and again, Yoda deflects the
boulders and throws them aside.

YODA: Powerful you have become, Dooku. The Dark Side I sense in you.

Ya think? You couldn’t sense the Dark Side in Palpy earlier and he was sitting right in front of you!

COUNT DOOKU: I’ve become more powerful than any Jedi. Even you.

Dooku raises his hand and unleashes Force lightning. Yoda deflects it back. Dooku quickly deflects it off into a wall. The Count tries again, and Yoda holds out his hand against it. The energy goes off in all directions, having no effect. Dooku stops and reaches for his lightsaber.

YODA: Much to lean you still have.

COUNT DOOKU: It is obvious that this contest cannot be decided by our knowledge of the Force…

Dooku activates his saber.

COUNT DOOKU: (Con’t) …but by our skills with a lightsaber.

I think Georgie and Hales ran out of ideas of how to fight with only the Force and went to the old stand-by. It couldn’t just be that GL wanted to see Yoda whip out a lightsaber and go medieval on somebody.

Could it?

Count Dooku whirls his lightsaber in a formal salute. Yoda draws his lightsaber from his belt with the Force and ignites it. Suddenly, Count Dooku leaps across the space at Yoda. He rains down blows upon the tiny figure. Yoda doesn’t budge an inch. For the first part of the contest, he parries every cut and thrust that Count Dooku aims. Nothing the great swordsman tries gets through. His energy drains. His strokes become feeble, slower.

Yoda attacks! He flies forward. Count Dooku is forced to retreat. Words are insufficient to describe the range and skill of Yoda’s speed and swordplay. His lightsaber his a humming blur of light. Finally, their blades cross and the fighting slows.

The only thing I changed in the two paragraphs above is that Yoda draws his saber with the Force and that Dooku jumps at Yoda to start the fight. (Well, they both jump.) “Words are insufficient to describe”? Isn’t that an understatement.

YODA: Fought well you have, my old Padawan.

Okay, two Sith lords came directly or indirectly from Yoda. Not a very good track record.

COUNT DOOKU: This is just the beginning.

Dooku gestures to one side and uses the Force to pull on one of the cranes in the hanger. It comes crashing down toward Obi-Wan and Anakin. Dooku runs toward his ship. YODA closes his eyes and concentrates, trying to stop the crane. Obi-Wan looks up. Dooku runs up the ship’s ramp, throwing a look back before going inside. The crane stops just feet above Obi-Wan and Anakin, hanging in midair for a few moments before Yoda moves it aside and drops it to the floor. The sound of the Sail Ship’s engines are heard starting up.

If he had to drop the thing somewhere, why didn’t he drop it on Dooku’s ship? Would have made it really hard for him to fly the coop.

EXT: GEONOSIS, SECRET HANGAR – LATE DAY

A Gunship pulls up to the landing platform. Padmé and four clonetroopers get out, just in time to see Dooku’s ship taking off. They fire at the craft to no avail.

EXT: GEONOSIS, SPACE

Count Dooku’s ship leaves Geonosis, passing escaping Trade Federation craft. The ship extends its sails and heads into deep space.

Note the lack of “good guy” ships in the vicinity. They couldn’t all be down on the planet. Odd.

INT: GEONOSIS, SECRET HANGER TOWER – LATE DAY

Anakin is awake. Yoda sighs heavily and retrieves his walking stick with the Force. Obi-Wan and Anakin painfully get to their feet.

PADMÉ: Anakin!

Padmé runs to Anakin and throws her arms around him. Anakin is barely able to stand up.

How about a hug for Yoda? He saved your lousy boyfriend’s life after all.

Posted by Darth Sheba @ 11:56 pm | 1 Comment »

Filed under: Attack of the Clones

One Response to “Chapter 34 – The Showdown”

Holy_Ben_Kenobi Says:
January 20th, 2008 at 12:25 am

NOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOooooo!!!!

This whole sequence is just…embarrassing….Lucas is…a hack. Yoda fighting with a saber should never have happened. It just shouldn’t. I think, though, that IF you were going to do this scene, the saber fight should’ve taken place FIRST!! And then up the notch. To me, using the Force should move up in levels. First you’re physical, and then you’re mental and spiritual. Yoda should’ve been able to take out Dooku without any saber.

Also, isn’t it ridiculous that Yoda couldn’t fling that heavy-column-whatever-the-f**k-it-is at Dooku’s ship. Would’ve killed two birds with one stone.